


On a First-Name Basis

by Bitenomnom



Series: For the Following [Length of Time] [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A Study in Pink, Alternate Universe, Gen, Sherlock mad lib, Stockholm Syndrome, dark!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 02:13:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitenomnom/pseuds/Bitenomnom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John went to the British Museum, he wasn’t expecting to find Greg. He was expecting even less for the following six weeks to be so dark.  If only Greg hadn’t jogged so quietly—but he did. <em>Really.</em></p>
<p>AU in which John shoots the cabbie before he has met Sherlock. Written for EClaireEvans based on the (above) fill of a mad lib I wrote.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On a First-Name Basis

**Author's Note:**

> This was written based on the summary generated by [EClaireEvans](http://eclaireevans.tumblr.com/) by filling in a mad lib I wrote as a part of a fun thing I did on Tumblr. (I hope you like it! =D)
> 
> I guess this is a little bit like an alternate version of [Elimination of Dummy Variables](http://archiveofourown.org/works/532836), where Sherlock catches John essentially right away.

            “A man like that would’ve had enemies, I s’pose…one of them might have been following him, but we’ve got nothing to go on.”

            “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

            “Okay, gimme.”

            So Sherlock does. “…You're looking for someone probably with a history of military service and nerves of steel,” he finishes. “Look up anyone who’s been discharged from the military within the past six months. Probably from Iraq or Afghanistan, and probably living alone.

            “And don’t arrest him straight away. I need to talk to him first.”

 

 

 

            John hears the familiar rattling of the door opening. “Greg,” he says in greeting, and does not try to shake the tiredness in his voice. He should probably be worried about the fact that the familiar face puts him at ease now; he should probably be worried about the fact that they are on first-name terms. It is, though, at least, a hell of a lot cozier than Afghanistan.

            “Look, mate,” says Greg. Because they’re mates now, apparently. First-name terms, and all that. “You’d actually be in prison now if it wasn’t for him, all right?”

            “This is so much better,” says John, flatly. Prison might at least be more exciting than…what? A basement with a deadbolt and no windows, that’s what.  “And certainly legal,” he adds dryly.

            “I don’t think there’s much Sherlock does that is.” Greg sighs. John shakes his head a little. _Lestrade_ sighs. _DI Lestrade_ sighs.

            “Then why haven’t you arrested _him_?”

            “He’s helpful,” says Greg. Lestrade. The detective inspector. John raises an eyebrow. “ _Really_ helpful. He does this…thing. You’ll see.”

            John isn’t sure why he hasn’t seen already. He’s been waiting down here in some basement—presumably DI Greg Lestrade’s basement, but there’s no telling, really; and maybe it’s not, it looks more like a converted flat than anything. There used to be a window, but it’s been barred and boarded up. “Where am I?” John chances to ask. “Am I at your place?”

            “Oh,” Greg says, pacing around the room. “God, no. Someone in my position keeping some bloody murderer hostage for weeks on end? Right, that’d end well.”

            “Then why do you keep coming here?”

            Greg winces a bit. “It’s…complicated.”

            “Try me.”

            “I owe Sherlock’s brother a couple of favors.”

            “And Sherlock’s brother put you up to keeping me here?”

            “Sherlock did. His brother, er,” Greg scratches at his head. “Supports the idea. And before you ask, I haven’t the slightest idea why. All right? I’m just here keeping my end of a bargain.”

            “How do you know they won’t report you?”

            Greg rolls his eyes. “Because then who would entertain Sherlock?”

            John shudders a little as his mouth twists. “Entertain?”

            “Not like…not like _that_. I’m a detective. He…purports to be one as well. I let him help out on the tough cases.”

            “Ah,” says John. “And why is he keeping me here?”

            “I really wish I knew.”

 

 

 

            Two weeks later, John doesn’t look up when the door creaks. “Greg,” he nods absently, still looking over his handiwork. He hasn’t had a lot to work with, but he was able to bust a chunk of wood loose from a mantelpiece and hone it down to a reasonably sharp blade against the walls. One side of the room is rough brick; he started with that, and then worked his way to smoother surfaces. He doesn’t especially want to hurt Greg, but he’s going to have to get out of here sooner or later. Whoever this Sherlock bloke is, he’s been a no-show so far. Perhaps he’s forgotten. Greg says he runs all sorts of experiments in his flat when he’s not working cases.

            Maybe, John thinks, he ought to blame Greg for this entire thing. For all John’s cautiousness in the weeks following his shooting that cabbie bloke who was about to kill yet another person— _serial suicides, my arse_ , John had thought at the time, when he saw the victim being escorted into a school-building at gunpoint by a cabbie, and everything had clicked into place, explanations for _who_ and _how_ even if not _why_ —Greg had managed to sneak up on him. He’d been quick, and he’d—well, there was no other way to say it. He’d _jogged_ so damn _quietly_. One minute John was trying to pass the time in the Roman Empire, or had he gotten to the Etruscans? Either way, he’d been snuck up behind with uncanny mastery and speed and escorted out—and who would argue it? He was being brought out by the police, after all. No one at the British Museum could’ve known that he was being taken to some dark basement to spend the next god-knew-how-many weeks as more or less a prisoner.

            This hadn’t been how he’d been planning to spend his time. John hears Greg shut the door behind him as he continues with his work. Not that John had particularly had any plans; look for work, maybe, if he fancied it. Ella must be wondering what happened to him. Or maybe not: he’d subtly threatened that he wasn’t coming back so many times that perhaps she simply figures him for a lost cause by now. Or maybe his name has been plastered all over the news. He’s got no way of knowing.

            “Keeping busy, I see,” says a voice that is much different from Greg’s. It reverberates; it bombinates in John’s chest. John’s head snaps up.

            “You’re the bloke the cabbie was about to kill,” John says quietly.

            “Well,” says the man, “I wouldn’t have died.”

            “Would too have.” John shakes his head. It was the entire reason he took the shot, wasn’t it? “I could make out the setup. Two pills, right? Did it occur to you that they might both be poisoned? Haven’t you seen _The Princess Bride_?”

            The man narrows his eyes, his mouth curling into a grimace. “The thought had occurred to me, regardless of my lack of knowledge of whatever popular culture information you’re attempting to cite.” He shakes his head. “But we’ll never know, will we? You shot him.”

            “I did,” John says. “Of course I did. He was about to kill you.”

            “Do you have any idea who I am?”

            “Besides unbelievably lucky? No.”

            “The name’s Sherlock Holmes.”

            John feels the hairs on his neck and arms stand immediately; he bristles. “ _You’ve_ been keeping me here.”

            “Oh, don’t be daft. You could’ve escaped twenty times over. You just chose not to.” He paces circles around John, who is helpless to do anything but stand in place and lift his chin. “I can see I was right about Afghanistan. Or was it Iraq?”

            “Afghanistan,” John says, and then, “Sorry, what…?”

            “Definitely military. But I see you’ve hurt yourself, presumably testing your,” he looks down at the sharpened wooden blade in John’s hand, “implement, and done an exemplary job of patching yourself up. Army doctor?”

            It’s close enough. John shrugs.

            Sherlock continues to pace. “I see your psychosomatic limp has been giving you fewer issues now than it was when Lestrade found you at the museum. You haven’t touched your cane for quite some time.”

            “Haven’t exactly been doing a lot of running around,” John says. “In case you forgot,” he snaps out, “I’ve been here for _six bloody weeks_.”

            “Yes,” Sherlock agrees. “Interesting, isn’t it?”

            “Not terribly.”

            “You shot a man who you believed to be a murderer, about to kill a stranger. Very noble of you, except that it wasn’t entirely borne of nobility, was it?” Sherlock doesn’t give John time to do more than open his mouth. “You were itching for it. You miss Afghanistan, don’t you?”

            “Everything but the hostage situation bit, yeah.” John glances around him to prove his point.

            “I said you had ample opportunity to escape this place and it’s true. You could have; you simply barely tried. This was something interesting for you, wasn’t it? Something exciting? You liked it a bit, I’d bet, having your own personal police force here to check on you. I can hear from the way you said his name that you’ve become fond of him. Stockholm syndrome,” Sherlock rattles off, now apparently to himself, as if John is no longer in the room at all except in Sherlock’s imagination. “But it goes deeper than that. You’ve been so isolated since your return from the war, and so detached from the rest of the idiots of society, that living has become an absolute chore to you. Walking to a grocery around the corner and finding any food you could possibly dream of? Dull. Having a small flat to live in, safe from all manners of danger? Dull. No missions, from day to day; you wander the streets and haven’t the slightest idea what to do with yourself.”

            John opens his mouth, but finds he has nothing to say, besides, “Amazing.”

            “Survival, however, is much more exciting,” Sherlock continues, becoming brighter at the compliment. “And while you have someone to bring you food here, and while you are reasonably safe here, it doesn’t feel that way, does it? You are simultaneously being taken care of while also struggling to get by. You like it, don’t you? Not having to worry about life becoming dull because you are stuck, a prisoner.” Sherlock stops in front of John, and his eyes bore into him. “I left you here for this long because I wanted to see how long it would be before you tried to escape.” He glances at John’s improvised weapon. “I see that you do have a limit, but you also have patience more immense than most, and a tendency to attach to your captor.”

            “Well,” John finally says, and he feels less defensive than he ought to, more like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders than he ought to. “I may disagree if you try to hurt me.”

            “Oh,” Sherlock says. “I don’t plan to do that.”

            “So you’re keeping me down here, then?”

            “No,” Sherlock says. “You’d be gone within the afternoon if I tried.”

            That much, John thinks, is probably true. “And where am I?”

            “221C Baker Street.”

            “So you’re just going to let me go?”

            Sherlock shifts his weight on his feet. It is the first time he has appeared to be out of his element so far. “Not precisely.”

            “Right,” John says, and waits for an answer. When none comes, he exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and says, “That was brilliant, by the way.”

            “What was?”

            “The…things you knew.”

            “I didn’t know; I noticed.”

            “What?”

            “I observe everything. From what I observe, I deduce everything. When I’ve eliminated the possible, whatever remains, no matter how mad it might seem, must be the truth.1”

            John shakes his head. Unbelievable. “Fantastic.”

            “Saying that out loud won’t make me release you faster.”

            John laughs at this, because for some reason that he doesn’t care to explore, it is hilarious. He doesn’t want to know if he’s laughing of discomfort, or if he’s laughing at the idea that he might want to be released.

            “If you’re ‘not precisely’ going to let me go, Sherlock,” John says, before realizing his slip-up, before realizing that he has placed them on first-name terms, and definitely before realizing how naturally the name slides off his tongue, “then what exactly are you doing?”

            Sherlock shifts his weight again. “I initially hoped to observe you because you promised to be interesting.” He takes in a slow breath. “I wasn’t expecting…quite exactly what I got.”

            “And what was that?”

            Sherlock doesn’t seem to hear him. “John,” he says, and John shivers. “How do you feel about the violin?”

**Author's Note:**

> 1: Taken from thescienceofdeduction.co.uk


End file.
